Basic overview of Twenty One Pilots
Twenty One Pilots (stylized as twenty one pilots or twenty øne piløts) is an American musical duo from Columbus, Ohio.
The band was formed in 2009 by lead vocalist, along with Nick Thomas (guitars, bass guitar and keyboards) and Chris Salih (drums, percussion), who left in 2011. Josh Dun came in to become the new drummer, while Tyler took over every other musical instrument within the band.
Josh Dun quite his job just to play one show with Tyler, not knowing if it would progress, but luckily for him, it did, he had no plan B.
During his senior year of high school, Tyler recorded his first album No Phun Intended from 2007 – 2008 in his basement as a solo project. The album never got formally released, it was only handed out on a CD to his friends and family, as well as those who attended some performances in the early years of the band.
They put out two self-released albums, twenty one pilots in 2009 and Regional at Best in 2011, this was then followed by being signed by Fueled by Ramen in 2012.
Vessel was released in 2013, being their label debut.
In 2015, their fourth album gave the duo massive success, Blurryface included the successful singles Stressed Out and Ride, it was also the first album in history which every track received at least a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
The duo also recorded a single for the soundtrack of the film Suicide Squad. Heathens made the group the first alternative artist to have tow concurrent top ten singles in the United States.
The fifth studio album, Trench, was released October 5, 2018.
2009 - 2011: Formation and self-titled album
Tyler Joseph first met his future bandmate Nicholas “Nick” Thomas at a young age during youth basketball in Columbus, Ohio. Nick transferred to Tyler’s middle school, leaving them two remaining friends through high school.
Tyler found an old keyboard his mother gave him for Christmas in his closet, leading him to start mimicking radio melodies. Tyler recorded a solo album No Phun Intended in 2007 in his parent’s basement. Nick helped Tyler by contributing guitar on several songs within the album, along with collaborating on the track “Trees”, which is now a signature Twenty One Pilots song.
Tyler attended Ohio State University, where he met Christopher “Chris” Salih at a party. Chris noticed Tyler’s talent and energy, which followed him to consult Tyler about starting a band. Tyler was impressed by the studio Salih built in his house. Tyler agreed to play music together, sharing his ideas for new music. Nick was invited to join the unnamed band as a bassist by Tyler before their first performance. The group moved into their own house in 2009, where the first album was conceptualized and recorded in the basement.
Around the Columbus area, the band played for a variety of audiences at clubs and venues. Tyler was inspired to incorporate disparate styles within his song writing after playing metal, hardcore and electronic venues.
The band started to experiment with costumes and on-stage acrobatics, to catch the attention of unfamiliar and disinterested attendees and promotors.
Now going by the name ‘Twenty One Pilots’, the group released their self-titled debut album, Twenty One Pilots, on December 29, 2009.
Tyler’s mother would help marketing by standing outside of the Ohio State University giving away tickets to his shows. The band participated in “Battle of the Band” contests at The Alrosa Villa and The Basement, important Columbus music venues.
The band posted two tracks on their SoundCloud in 2010, a cover of “Jar of Hearts” by Christina Perri and a remixed interpretation of “Con te partirò (Time to Say Goodbye)” by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman. The latter track became the first song Josh Dun, a local drummer, heard from the band.
Tyler, Josh and Chris took part in musical efforts of a Columbus, Ohio church called Five14. They contributed four of the fourteen tracks off their album. Tyler appeared in a 3-part video called “The (moderately inspiring tale of the) Longboard Rodeo Tango”, and sang “O come, O come, Emmanuel” in another video, Christmas With the Stars.
2011 - 2012: Line-up changed and Regional at Best
On May 8, 2011, Chris left the band to focus on work, a month after on June 3, 2011, Nick left to focus on his schooling, both posted farewell notes on the band’s official Facebook page. Before leaving the project, Chris invited Guitar Centre co-worker and friend of the group Josh Dun (former touring drummer for House of Heroes), to take his place in the band. After being impressed by the band’s potential and Tyler’s creative vision, Josh abandoned all plans to pursue drumming in Nashville and joined the project only a few weeks before Nick left the group.
Chris and Nick remained involved with the production of the band for a while after their departure. Nick attended school in North Carolina for a brief time but moved back into Tyler and Josh’s house in Columbus a year after and began to manage their merchandise. Nick stayed a part of the merchandise distribution crew throughout the production of Blurryface and continues to stay actively involved in the bands tour cycle. Nick has recently moved to Savannah, Georgia where he still lives today. Chris co-founded “Elmwood Custom Goods”, a carpentry company where he works as an account manager, located in Columbus.
With the new line-up now being only Tyler and Josh, on July 8, 2011, Twenty One Pilots self-released their second album, Regional at Best. On the grounds of New Albany High School, there was a free CD release show. As Chris and Nick were involved with the conceptualization of the album, none of them or Josh claimed to of had much involvement with the production, which was handled nearly exclusively by Tyler himself. Tyler’s brother Zack is featured on the track “Kitchen Sink”, as well as Tyler’s college acquaintance Jocef on “Be Concerned”.
After months of creating a fan base in the Columbus area through social interaction and constant touring, in November 2011, the band played a sold out concert at Columbus’ Newport Music Hall. For an unsigned local band to have this much of an accomplishment, a few record labels were interested in seeing if the band’s appeal would go further than Ohio. Within the same year, via an email newsletter, the duo put two free unreleased songs, the original “House of Gold” and “Two”. The band released a music video for their unreleased song “Goner” on YouTube on February 11, 2012. The song was later rewritten and recorded again to be released on Blurryface in 2015.
Tyler called Regional at Best a “glorified mixtape that they used to solidify and reach a fan base.
Tyler and Josh had a Regional at Best tour with the rock band CHALLENGER!, showing it in a series of videos uploaded on to their YouTube channel.
2012 - 2014: Major label signing and Vessel
The band announced their signing to Atlantic Records subsidiary Fueled by Ramen in April 2012. The label is known for the success of popular alternative artists, such as Paramore and Panic! at the Disco. The first debut recording with Fueled by Ramen was an EP entitled “Three Songs” on July 17, 2012. The band then embarked on a short tour with Neon Trees and Walk the Moon the month after the EP.
Tyler managed to maintain ownership of the self-titled album, which only remains available digitally. However, Regional at Best was discontinued and removed from digital markets after the rights for the album were transferred to the label as part of the signing agreement in 2012 with Fueled by Ramen. Physical copies of the album are now rare, the tracks “Slowtown”, “Anathema”, “Ruby”, “Be Concerned”, and “Clear” have all been made commercially unavailable.
Another music video was released on YouTube on November 12, 2012 for the song “Holding on to You”, which was directed by Jordan Bahat. The band then released another video on January 7 and April 19, 2013 for “Guns for Hands” and “Car Radio”, both directed by Mark Eshleman of Reel Bear Media.
Tyler confirmed in an interview that songs from Regional at Best would reappear on their major-label debut studio album. Five tracks from Regional at Best – “Guns for Hands”, “Holding on to You”, “Ode to Sleep”, “Car Radio”, and “Trees” – got re-recorded, followed by being released for their third album. The track “Lovely” was also re-recorded and was released as a single in Japan on April 17, 2013. As bonus tracks on the UK version of Vessel, “Glowing Eyes”, “Kitchen Sink”, and “Forest” appeared as unchanged.
Vessel, being their third album, was released January 8, 2013. It reached No. 21 on the Billboard 200, No. 9 on the Digital Albums chart, No. 17 on the Internet Albums chart, No. 15 on the Rock Albums Chart, and No. 10 on the Alternative Albums Chart. As well as achieving those, the tracks “Guns for Hands” and “Lovely” reached No. 21 and No. 67 on the Japan Hot 100.
Twenty One Pilots announced they were joining Fall Out Boy as supporting acts on their Save Rock and Roll Arena Tour, along with Panic! at the Disco being supporting acts too, in May 2013.
On Conan in their late night debut, twenty one pilots performed “House of Gold” on August 8, 2013. The music video for the song was uploaded on October 2.
Twenty One Pilots performed a set at the mtvU Woodie Awards during SXSW on March 17, 2014. They performed “Car Radio” at the 2014 MTV Movie Awards on April 13 as well as performing it on Late Night with Seth Meyers on April 28.
In 2014, twenty one pilots played at a number of music festivals and other events around the United States, such as Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Boston Calling, and Firefly. In the band’s first headlining tour, the Quiet is Violent World Tour, many of these cities were requested to be incorporated in to the tour, which started in September 2014 and finished in November of the same year.
The band released a music video for the song “Ode to Sleep” on December 31, 2014. The video was made up of footage captured by the band creative director Mark Eshleman from the three concerts over the preceding three years, the video showed the band’s rapid growth from their origins as a small local band to now being a nationally-popular alternative act, an upward trend that would continue into the next album cycle.
2015 - 2017: Blurryface
The band announced on March 16, 2015, that their new album “Blurryface” was to be released on May 19. The first single, “Fairly Local” was released on March 17, the second single of the album “Tear in My Heart”, and its music video were released on April 5, 2015. “Stressed Out” was released on April 28, bring the third single from the album, along with a music video. This track became the groups’ highest selling single, peaking at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on both Alternative Songs and Hot Rock Songs charts, while also passing one billion views on YouTube.
The album was released 2 days prior to the date the band gave, May 17, 2015. 134,000 copies were sold in the first week in the U.S. which made it the bands first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200. Blurryface won in the category of “Top Rock Album” and the band won the category “Top Rock Artist” at the Billboard Music Awards on May 22, 2016.
The Blurryface Tour began May 11, 2015 in Glasgow, Scotland. The tour followed the band around the United States, Australia, Asia, and Europe. The U.S. leg of the show started on September 8, 2015, they included Echosmith and Finish Ticket as the support acts. They performed “Stressed Out” on Late Night with Seth Meyers on September 14, 2015. A London show was announced by the band in February 2016, followed by announcing a run of UK dates, including a second London show being added. The supporting act for the UK tour were Transviolet. The UK dates ended the initial Blurryface tour.
After the Blurryface tour ended, the band announced a second tour for the album, the Emotional Roadshow World Tour. The tour started in Cincinnati on May 31, 2016. They covered the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Australia. For the American run of the tour, the support acts were Chef’Special and Mutemath, an Irish singer Bry joined the band for their European leg.
The band released a song on June 16, 2016, called “Heathens”. It was the first single from the Suicide Squad soundtrack, the song was leaked on June 15, making it to be released earlier than the expected date of June 24. The music video for the song was released June 21, 2016. The track is played at the end of the film during the credits.
The band became to be the third rock act to of had two singles simultaneously appear in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100.
A cover was released by the band in September 2016 of the song “Cancer” by My Chemical Romance. This was contributed to the tribute album Rock Sound Presents: The Black Parade. Following the release of the song, an animated lyric video followed.
On October 8, 2016, twenty one pilots featured as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. The band performed orchestra-accompanied versions of “Ride” and “Heathens”. “Heathens” and “Stressed Out” were performed on the American Music Awards 2016. As well as performing, the band collected their first award on American television for Favourite Pop/Rock Duo and Favourite Alternative Rock Artist. A limited-edition live vinyl album was released on November 25, 2016. The vinyl set documented two performances at Fox Oakland Theatre during the band’s 2015 Blurryface Tour, under the name Blurryface Live.
Tyler and Josh collaborated with alternative rock band Mutemath, leading them to release a five-song EP, TOPxMM, composed of remixes and reimagining of four tracks from Blurryface and Heathens. On December 19, the EP was uploaded on to the band’s website free of charge, as well as releasing a 25 minute long video of the songs being recorded in the studio on the band’s YouTube channel.
During the Grammy Awards on February 12, 2017, twenty one pilots won an award for “Stressed Out” in the Best Pop/Duo Group Performance category. Tyler and Josh stripped to their underwear before taking to the stage (still with their shirts on), with Tyler claiming in the acceptance speech that this was a fulfilment of a promise the duo had made with each other in the early days on the band.
Tickets were beginning to be sold on March 27, 2017, for the bands five-date hometown tour “Tour De Columbus”, which was taking place in June 17. The band performed at small venues where they first played, including The Basement, Newport Music Hall, and Express Live!, ending their tour cycle with shows at Nationwide Arena and Value City Arena.
During an interview in November 2016 with Alternative Press, the band stated that after their last show, they will be “going dark” to focus on new music. Tyler stated he wants to focus on the lyrical content of the music, bringing the music back to the “authenticity, lyrics, delivery, and fearlessness of song writing” similar to the lyrics within the self-titled album. The last activity of the band were posts on social media which showed an eye closing over lyrics from a few of their songs in July 2017.
The song “Hometown” received a Gold certification from the RIAA in March 2018, making Blurryface the first full-length album to have every track achieve at least the gold status.
2018 - Present: Trench
During April 2018, a cryptic message was discovered on the web store, revealing a website. Fans began using the clues and found more sections of the site, giving the hint of the band returning. Multiple images were uploaded to the website, which included letters from a character named “Clancy”. Twenty one pilots broke their year-long silence in July 2018, sending a cryptic email to fans, followed by later posting a video to all social media platforms and updating their logo and branding. Tyler made his first appearance in over a year for an interview with Beats 1, Zane Lowe. The interview took place in Tyler’s home studio in Columbus, Ohio. He spoke about the year long hiatus, creating the new album, and battling against his own insecurities.
Two songs were released on July 11, 2018, “Jumpsuit” which was a music video, and “Nico and the Niners”. The announcement for their fifth studio album, Trench, also came out, thus being released October 5, 2018, along with a new world tour, called “The Bandito Tour”, starting October 16. The video for “Nico and the Niners” was released later on July 26, 2018. Another track from the album, “Levitate”, was released vie Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show as the day’s “World Record”. “Jumpsuit”, “Nico and the Niners”, and after the video for “Levitate” was released, they completed a trilogy series.
At the MTV VMAs on August 20, 2018, there was a ten second snippet of the track “My Blood”, this was played at the end of a commercial promoting the new album. The band made “My Blood” available on August 27, 2018 on streaming services as the fourth official single from the album. On the same day of the release of Trench on October 5, a music video for My Blood was released on their YouTube channel. The new album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums charts. All of the 14 tracks on the album were in the top 25 of the Hot Rock Songs charts, five of them being in the top 10.
At Brixton’s O2 Academy in London, the band played their first show in over a year, “A Complete Diversion”. They performed songs from their previous albums, as well as the currently 4 released tracks from Trench. The single “Jumpsuit” was performed at the 2018 American Music Awards on October 9, at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles. In BBC Radio 1’s live lounge, Tyler performed a stripped down version of “My Blood” and “Ride”, as well as covering Damien Rice’s “9 Crimes”.
The Bandito Tour started on October 16, starting in the United States and following with legs in Oceania and Europe. Additional tour dates were announced for Canada, Mexico and United States. Billboard’s Gab Ginsberg described the tour as a “must-see performance”, noting the band’s stunts during the set which included leaping, backflipping, vertical crowd-surfing, suspended bridge walk, and scaffold scaling.
The music video for “Chlorine” was released on the band’s YouTube account on January 22, 2019, directed by Mark C Eshleman of Reel Bear Media. The video features an alien-like creature who goes by the name of “Ned”. At Lollapalooza in 2019, the band are scheduled to perform at the four day festival in August in Chicago.
Artistry
The band has been described to have the style of alternative hip hop, electropop, indie pop, pop rock, rap rock, alternative rock, reggae, rock, synth-pop, pop, electronica, electronic rock, emo rap, indie rock, pop-rap, hip hop, psychedelic, and indietronica.
It is difficult to categorize the band using just a single genre, all songs range in genre. The fact Tyler and Josh are both self-taught led to them breaking musical conventions they were never aware of during production, this including staying to just one genre of music.
The band brings a mix of piano, synthesizers, drums, vocals, organs, bass, and occasionally ukulele, guitar, and trumpet. The songs are written by Tyler, who uses both sung and rapped lyrics. A music journalist Carl Wilson has noted that Tyler’s rapping is often compared to Macklemore, yet he also wrote “but among the ranks of post-Eminem white rappers, I find Joseph more probing, sardonic, and expressive.” Tyler has stated that he never intended to become a rapper, but when attempting to fit poetry which he had written in to music, he found that the rapping elements of it were the only way to fit them within the song.
Band name, iconography and fandom
Tyler was in theatre class and they were studying a play called “All My Sons” written by Arthur Miller in the 40’s. it was about a father who ran a company that provided parts for airplanes used in WWII. The father later found out that the parts he were providing were faulty, leading him to come to a moral crossroad: he can take the parts back and not send them out, but he will lose a lot of money and be in a financially tough situation, it would also taint his business and his name and be known as ‘unreliable’ in his trade, this being the ultimately ‘right’ thing to do OR send the parts out, make the necessary money needed to provide for his family, not taint his name, etc.
The father ends up sending out the parts and twenty one pilots died because of this. His son was a pilot in the war who had lost his life, there was no evidence to prove it was directly related but his daughter blamed her father for her brother’s death. He later ended up taking his life at the end of the play.
Tyler went on to say how they make it relevant to the band name: “I feel like we are all constantly encountering moral crossroads where the decisions that benefit the ‘now’ will have consequences down the road; but the decision that might seem tough and tolling right away will ultimately be more rewarding. What is our purpose for playing music? We are constantly asking ourselves that question. The answer can change all the time, but for right now we are just going to stick with something as simple as we want to make people think.”
The band name was originally stylized as “twenty | one | pilots” on their earlier cover art; however, by their second album, Regional at Best, the format was changed to “twenty øne piløts” with a diagonal line through the Os.
Chris Salih stated in an interview that Mark C. Eshleman, a long-time friend of and creative director for the band, created the band’s logo by “messing around with shapes”. Tyler found that the arrangement resonated with him.
Regarding their logo, Tyler stated this in an interview:
“It means Twenty One Pilots, the logo does. Why it means Twenty One Pilots, is it really goes along with one of our songs called "Kitchen Sink". The whole concept of that song is that I feel that humans are always struggling all the time when it comes to purpose, trying to figure out what their purpose is, what purpose even is, what's the point, justifying your own existence. A lot of kids and people my age struggle with "what's the point", and with the logo, what it really means is it's an encouragement. When someone asks me what the logo means to me, the logo means something to me because I made it mean something to me. That's the point. The point is that I created something that only I understand and whether or not I decide to disclose the meaning of it, that's the beginning of purpose for me. The meaning of purpose for me, is by creating something, if it be by writing lyrics, painting a picture, by expressing yourself through art if it's photography or music or theatre, or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be artistic, but if you create something and only you know the meaning of it, that's the beginning of purpose for you. When you're in the room by yourself trying to decide whether to stay alive, you can tell yourself "I should probably stay alive because I'm the only one who knows the meaning of that thing", so the logo is an encouragement for people to create. That's what it means.”
In 2018, the new logo was unveiled for Trench’s release. There was an extra slash added on each side. The colour scheme was also changed to yellow for the shapes, along with a solid black background. Tyler said, “If you were to look at those two logos that we had done in the past, and put it together, it would create a logo that is two upward slashes and two sideways slashes. It’s kind of a continuation of what we’ve been working on.” He goes on to explain the extra slashes represent “the feeling of being surrounded by something that’s protecting you… I knew I wanted that logo to have those extra layers of protection.”
The band’s fandom is named the “Skeleton Clique” or just the Clique, this is a reference to the band using skeleton iconography in many performances, graphics, and music videos. The Skeleton Clique are shown in the band’s official iconography by logos of a skill and alien head on lines resembling keys. During the Blurryface World Tour in November 2016, the Wood Green tube station in London was decorated in Clique-related artwork, spanning over one-hundred advertising panels. Twenty One Pilots hosted a public art show during the 2017 Tour De Columbus, named “Artøpia”, exclusively for Clique-related artwork at the Nationwide Arena in the United States.
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